Pro video production on Amiga?

[weirdami]

Who ever said that VT was the first non-linear editor?

[Sig999]

Well you're saying that noone was was editing non-linear until Flyer...

Which taken one way is of course absolutely false...
and giving the benefit of the doubt and taking the other way implies you thought flyer was the first.

[Jose]

The Draco and the DracoVision had an optional DV card. It converted DV to Draco's own format, which is a very high quality version of motion JPEG. This is all in the digitla domain. It's said that some small loss of quality occurred when converting between the 2 codecs though...

[Rebel-CD32]

The Draco video workstations used the MacroSystem VLab Motion card, a non-linear broadcast quality video editing card. They were a Zorro II card, and when combined with a Toccata sound card, a 030-060, RTG card and a fast SCSI (or something more modern perhaps) hard drive, they're a brilliant little video editing system. Editing video on the fly is instant, the only processing time is when it needs to render the wipes and other special effects. They handled MPEG and Motion-JPEG, but I guess the max resolution they can do is PAL and NTSC video res, so for editing DVDs they'd be fine, but for anything HD you'd be out of luck.

I used a VLab Motion Amiga system many times in the past as well as many earlier PC and Mac editing systems and the Amiga was a dream compared to those systems. Times have changed though, sure, but for its day it was the best. The VLab also connects directly to the Video Toaster, and ran this awesome software called Movie Shop.

For more information, check this link - http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=303

I'll tell you what, it sure impressed all the other kids in high school when they were presenting their assignments on big bits of cardboard, or a speach, or a slide projector if they knew how, and I was bringing in fully digitally edited videos with special effects, wipes, titles, animations, 3D landscape fly-throughs, and all those other cool things that were so simple to do on an Amiga.

My friend who owned the Amiga with the VLab edited several videos professionally, including some surfing videos (I can still buy some of these on DVD in the shops now), TV ads and educational videos for kids.

I'm hoping somehow we get some new video editing software for AmigaOS4, maybe a new version of Movie Shop or something ported from another system, as long as they support whatever modern cards are out there that can be plugged in.

[Rebel-CD32]

I just thought I might add, one of the cheapest, easiest and most fun things you can do with an Amiga and video is to get a Genlock and play around with it. Plug a video camera into the Genlock, the Genlock into the Amiga and overlay some graphics over the video signal, output it to a TV or monitor.

Kids love it, they can look straight at the screen and paint on their face with a paint program. You can play animations over video, like an animation of some fire burning at the bottom or around the edges of the screen, and anyone who looks at the screen sees their face in the middle of the flames (a trick I set up in the window on Halloween). One time I made a DOOM-style panel and gun, placed them at the bottom of the screen and genlocked a video I took walking through my house, my friends thought it was cool at the time. And of course, there are HEAPS of video titling programs out there for overlaying animated, scrolling, bouncing, 3D titles with all sorts of effects.

Genlocks go pretty cheap on eBay these days too.

[orb85750]

Thanks Rebel!  Very much appreciated.  I'm totally new to the video hobby idea (as you probably can tell by my questions), so I want/need to read more about what is possible on an Amiga.  And, yes, hopefully something new will come along for use with OS4.x or MOS.  -Dave

[marcfrick2112]

sigh... I wish I could say that a Toaster/Flyer set-up could take care of pro video production today... but it's a lot of hassle, and time to do it on an Amiga. It's sad, really, the Amiga used to rule desktop video, in fact, it practically invented the term... But the sad fact is, it's cheaper and easier to do it with other platforms. The Flyer internally could handle up to D2 quality, VTU mag. mentioned a 'promised' update to the Flyer software that would allow D2 quality recording, that would've handled HD, and them some ...  :cry:

[Varthall]

Shouldn't an AmigaOne or a Sam be able to manage modern video editing?

Varthall

[darksun9210]

i had a digital broadcaster32 non-linear edit card.
this monster cost £12,000 new, and i got it, an AD516, and an opal vision card for a tenth of that. and was capable of standard definition recording/playback, from component, s/vhs, and betacam S/P. both PAL and NTSC.
you needed a seperate sound card to use it tho, ok, so i had an AD516, and could use the SMPTE timecoding with movieshop, but i wanted a SoundStage, as the soundstage had DSP chips that could help accelerate the FX rendering/character generation, not to mention handle alot more than 8 channels of 20bit audio.
could also attach timebase correctors and comb filters needed for pre-digital video sources.

why did i sell it? why why why :headwall:

[KimmoK]

Interesting read about Amiga & video etc:
http://tech-head.com/amiga2.htm

bounties and news about getting Amiga video editing going again:
http://www.discreetfx.com/press.html

and for example:
Chicago, Illinois – November 30th, 2007

Now that Amiga OS 4.0 is available for Classic Amiga, Visual FX company DiscreetFX LLC Inc., is willing to work with select members of the Amiga OS 4.0 development team to insure future compatibility with the Video Toaster 4000 card. This includes free Video Toaster 4000 cards to members of the team that have Amiga 4000/T computers running Amiga OS 4.0 and have an available video slot.

DiscreetFX's CEO stated:
"It's great news that Amiga OS 4.0 is now available for Classic Amiga's with PPC cards. What would be even more exciting is if the Amiga Video Toaster 4000 also worked on OS 4.0." The time is at hand for the Amiga to reemerge as a video editing/desktop video platform. The release of the Amiga Video Toaster source code was step one. Amiga OS 4.0 for Classic Amiga was step two. Now lets go on to step three."



and I think there has been digital video editor under development for MOS, but I did not spot any link to that now ...

[Sig999]

Varthall wrote:
Shouldn't an AmigaOne or a Sam be able to manage modern video editing?

Varthall

A more appropriate question would be 'Is anyone going to program a modern video editing system for the AmigaOne or Sam'


I've used Avid Media Composer on a Mac G3 doing News Promo's and a 1 hour weekly real estate show several years ago - so you could say it *COULD* be done.

Will it though?  That's another question entirely.

For the amount of work that would be required to go into it, it would have to be commerciallly viable - which means competing with products available today.

Not easy, but not impossible.. Final Cut has been able to do this.  Not too many years ago it wasn't taken very seriously at all - a lot of places I've worked with and for considered it a 'toy' for home use only.  This year we have replaced 3 out of 4 edit bays with Final Cut Pro.

Mind you that would involve looking at what is available, and improving on it.  Again this isn't impossible.  Avid had the foresight to design its interface around people who actually edit - which although not immediately intuitive, once you actually do the work is a joy to use - hotkeys are placed logically in groups based on frequency of use in actual editing.. they understood that your one hand will leave the keyboard to use the mouse and other such things.

Final Cut is more designed by programmers - my hands 'cross over' - things that can slow you down..

On the flipside Final Cut is a dream to work with when going back and forth between things such as photoshop and after effects. it's clip manipulation on the timeline I think is better and easier to use as well.

If a new program were to be made, its designers would do well to find these things that seem to work well on one system or another system and bring these features together.

This being said, there seems to be a near bullish resistance to change when it comes to the Amiga nowadays, and if the solution were simply a rebadged and tooled toaster - it would be doomed to failure - NOBODY wants to  go back to the 'bad old days' of scopes and mixers. The paradigm has changed....for the better.

In fact my boss came to me several months ago, knowing I was a Amiga enthusiast from the old days and put it to me 'Could you imagine still using Video Toaster for this?'

My reply was 'If you ever made me - I'd slit my wrists and bleed out on the edit bay floor'.

[Jose]

@Rebel-CD32

That's not correct. The Draco used the Draco Motion card, check on amiga-hardware for Draco and DracoVision. The Draco motion was an updated version of the VLabMotion for the Draco bus with added capabilities and faster throughput.

[weirdami]

Sig999 wrote:
Well you're saying that noone was was editing non-linear until Flyer...

Which taken one way is of course absolutely false...
and giving the benefit of the doubt and taking the other way implies you thought flyer was the first.

I guess context means nothing these days.  :roll:

[Sig999]

weirdami wrote:

Sig999 wrote:
Well you're saying that noone was was editing non-linear until Flyer...

Which taken one way is of course absolutely false...
and giving the benefit of the doubt and taking the other way implies you thought flyer was the first.

I guess context means nothing these days.  :roll:

Ok, so the former then I take it?

In context.... your statement is false. From right after you mentioned hooking decks up to the end.

That makes it much simpler.

[leirbag28]

@orb85750

Don't listen to some of these People.

The Amiga can do 480i  1440 x 480 (its called Super HiRes mode)
Just put it in Overscan

But this mode is best suited for Slide SHows and Overlaying Graphics, lower Thirds and animated logos over Video with a Genlock.

Listen Carefully: Get SCALA MM300, 400, or InfoChannel 500 and a SuperGen SX genlock and a CHROMAKEY PLUS if you can get it.

All Cheap.  You will be amazed!  and YES you can do DIGITAL Video (Not internally) but externally with Amiga Hardware and a 3CCD Digital8 or MiniDV Camera that has S-Video input.

this allows you to professionally record Amiga's output as well as the Video that is being Genlocked onto professionally in Digital Format. You can then Edit it further if you like with iMovie. (I try to d everything on the fly in Amiga)

@bloodline
quote:
Digital Video work requires Hispeed Harddrives, Powerful CPUs and 32bit GFX all of which never made it to the Amiga.
------------------------------------------------------------

Wrong.... Digital Video only requires a Digital Recording Device... both for genlocking and Recording a Master of all Amiga's output.......it doesnt have to be an INTERNAL Harddrive in the Amiga...it cna instead be external like a DV Camera or Deck with S-Video inputs.


@orb85750

Look at this Video I did with an Amiga 1200 with Genlock, ChromaKey, SCALA MM300, and Converted www.digitaljuice.com bakgrounds. The Dancers I hired.  No Special Video Card....just an A1200 with a Blizzard 1240 and 128mb RAM (will work the same with 16mb)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hEbs6FX0cM

[sadddam]

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hEbs6FX0cM"

hi!

i cant download the video nor with getvideo (Sorry can't get expected data.) nor with tubexx (it finds the video by url but unable to download and play it). i even search for your username also for the video name but no hit.
please, i really wanna see this video!